--Mr. Laicus here needs a little touching up on that point, Doctor; and I am glad you are here to do it. How as to that Bible cla.s.s, Mr.
Laicus, that I spoke to you about week before last? There are four or five young men from the barrow factory in the Sabbath School now.
But they have no teacher. I am sure if you could see your way clear to take that cla.s.s you would very soon have as many more. There are some thirty of them that rarely or never come to church. And as for me, I can"t get at them. They are mostly unbelievers. Mr. Gear himself, the superintendent, is a regular out and out infidel. And I never could do anything with unbelievers.
Laicus.:
--Deacon, I wish I could. But I am very busy all through the week, and I really don"t see how I can take this work up on Sunday. Beside it would require some week-day work in addition.
Dr. Argure.:
--No man can be too busy to serve the Lord, Mr. Laicus; certainly no professed disciple of the Lord. The work of the church, Mr. Laicus, is before every other work in its transcendant importance.
Laicus.:
--I don"t know about that. Seems to me, I have seen somewhere that if a man does not provide for his own family he is worse than an infidel.
Dr. Argure,: [(putting this response away from him majestically).]
--It is unfortunately too common an excuse even with professors of religion that they are too busy to serve in the work of the Lord.
There is for example the instance of Dr. Curall. He was elected at my suggestion last summer as an elder in our church. But he declined the office, which the apostle declares to be honorable, and of such a character that if it be well used they who employ it purchase to themselves a good degree. Alas! that it should be so frequently so-- ourselves first and Christ afterwards.
Laicus.:
--Is that quite fair Dr? Must Dr. Curall be put down as refusing to follow the Master because he refuses to leave the duties of his profession which he is doing well, to take on those of a church office which he might do but poorly? May not he who goes about healing the sick be following Christ as truly as he who preaches the Gospel to the poor? Is the one to be accused of serving the world any more because of his fees than the other because of his salary?
Can an elder do any more to carry the Gospel of Christ to the sick bed and the house of mourning than a Christian physician, if he is faithful as a Christian?
Dr. Argure shook his head but made no response.
Deacon Goodsole.:
--That may do very well in the case of a doctor, Mr. Laicus. But I don"t see how it applies in your case, or in that of farmer Faragon, or in that of Typsel the printer or in that of Sole the boot-maker, or in that of half a score of people I could name, who are doing nothing in the church except pay their pew rent.
Laicus.:
--Suppose you pa.s.s my case for the moment, and take the others. Take farmer Faragon for example. He has a farm of three hundred acres. It keeps him busy all the week. He works hard, out of doors, all day.
When evening comes he gets his newspaper, sits down by the fire and pretends to read. But I have noticed that he rarely reads ten minutes before he drops asleep. When he comes to church the same phenomenon occurs. He cannot resist the soporific tendencies of the furnaces. By the time Mr. Work gets fairly into secondly, Farmer Faragon is sound asleep. So he does not even listen to the preaching. Is he then a drone? Suppose you make a calculation how many mouths he feeds indirectly by the products of his farm. I cannot even guess. But I know nothing ever goes from it that is not good. The child is happy that drinks his milk, the butcher fortunate who buys his beef, the housewife well off who has his apples and potatoes in her cellar. He never sends a doubtful article to market; never a short weight or a poor measure. I think that almost every one who deals with him recognizes in him a Christian man. He does not work in Sunday School, it is true, but he has brought more than one farm hand into it. Christ fed five thousand by the sea of Galilee with five loaves and two small fishes. Was that Christian?
Farmer Faragon, feeds, in his small way, by his industry, a few scores of hungry mortals. Is he a drone?
Or take Mr. Typsel the printer. He publishes the Newtown Chronicle.
He sends a weekly message to 10,000 readers, at least twenty times as many as Dr. Argure"s congregation. I do not know how good a Christian he is; I do not know much about the Newtown Chronicle. But I know that the press is exerting an incalculable influence over the people, for good or for ill and the man who devotes his energies to it, and really uses it to educate and elevate the community, is doing as much in his sphere for Christ as the minister in his. He has no right to neglect the greater work G.o.d has given him to do for the lesser work of teaching a Sabbath School cla.s.s.
Jennie.:
--That is if he cannot well do both.
Laicus.:
--Yes--of course. If he can do both, that is very well.
Dr. Argure.:
--That"s a very dangerous doctrine Mr. Laicus.
Laicus,: [(warmly).]
--If it is true it is not dangerous. The truth is never dangerous.
Dr. Argure.:
--The truth is not to be spoken at all times.
Deacon Goodsole.:
--That"s a very unnecessary doctrine, Dr., to teach to a lawyer.
Dr. Argure,: [(indifferent alike to the sally and to the laugh which follows it).]
--Consider, Mr. Laicus, what would be the effect on the church of preaching that doctrine. It is our duty to build up the church. It is the church which is the pillar and ground of the truth. It is the church which is Christ"s great instrumentality for the conversion of the world. When the kingdoms of this world become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, then the church will have universal dominion. Here in Wheathedge, for example, Mr. Work is laboring to build up and strengthen the church of Christ. And you tell his people and the people of hundreds of similar parishes all over the land, that it is no matter whether they do any work in the church or not. Consider the effect of it.
Laicus.:
--It seems to me, Dr., that you entertain a low, though a very common, conception of your office. The ministers are not mere builders of churches. They are set to build men. The church which will have universal dominion is not this or that particular organization, but the whole body of those who love the truth as it is in Christ Jesus. Churches, creeds, covenants, synods, a.s.semblies, a.s.sociations, will all fade; the soul alone is immortal. If you are really building for eternity you cannot merely build churches.
Dr. Argure.:
--Consider then, Mr. Laicus, the effect of your doctrine on the hearts and souls of men. Consider how many idle and indifferent professors of religion there are, who are doing nothing in the church, and nothing for the church. And you tell them that it is just as well they should not; that they are just as worthy of honor as if they were active in the Lords vineyard?
Laicus.:
--It is just as well if they are really serving Christ. It does not make any difference whether they are doing it in the church or out of the church. Christ himself served chiefly out of the church, and had it arrayed against him. So did Paul; so did Luther.
Deacon Goodsole.:
--Do you mean that it makes no difference, Mr. Laicus, whether a man is a member of the church or not?
Laicus.:
--Not at all. That is quite another matter. I am speaking of church work, not of church membership; and I insist that church work and Christian work are not necessarily synonymous. I insist that whatever tends to make mankind better, n.o.bler, wiser, permanently happier, if it is work carried on in the spirit of Christ is work for Christ, whether it is done in the church or out of the church. I insist that every layman is bound to do ten-fold more for Christ out of the church than in its appointed ways and under its supervision.
I have read, Dr., with a great deal of interest your learned and exhaustive treatise on the higher education of women, (I am afraid I told a little lie there; but had not the Dr. just told me that the truth was not to be told at all times), but I declare to you, that so far as the elevation of woman is concerned, I would rather have invented the sewing machine than have been the author of all the sermons, addresses, magazine articles, editorials and pamphlets on the woman question that have been composed since Paul wrote his second Epistle to the Christians.
Dr. Argure,: [(shaking his head).]
--It is a dangerous doctrine, Mr. Laicus, a dangerous doctrine. You do not consider its effect on the minds of the common people.
Laicus,: [(thoroughly aroused and thoroughly in earnest).]
--Do you consider the influence of the opposite teaching, both on the church and on the individual? We are building churches, you tell us.
The "outsiders," as we call them, very soon understand that. They see that we are on the look-out for men who can build us up, not for men whom we can build up. If a wealthy man comes into the neighborhood, we angle for him. If a devout, active, praying Christian moves into the neighborhood, we angle for him. If a drunken loafer drops down upon us, does anybody ever angle for him?
If a poor, forlorn widow, who has to work from Monday morning till Sat.u.r.day night, comes to dwell under the shadow of our church, do we angle for her? Yes! I am glad to believe we do. But the shrewdness, the energy, the tact, is displayed in the other kind of fishing.
Don"t you suppose "the world" understand this? Don"t you suppose our Mr. Wheaton understands what we want him in the board of trustees for? Such men interpret our invitation--and they are not very wrong--as, come with us and do us good; not, come with us and we will do you good.